Thanks emptywheel, great post and of course, the relevance to the Intelligence Committee is brilliant in its practicality.

RonK

You and what army.

Here’s a passage from a post I wrote in response to Waas’ first article on this withheld summary:

Then, they went after the White House.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Sunday that President Bush’s aides had pledged to provide â€every document†they have been denying the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,

Sounds like Roberts has those SAOs bowed down in terror, huh? Until you finish the sentence, that is.

but the White House replied with a noncommittal statement.

Or read further.

â€I have talked with very top White — or almost the top, you know, White House official, and he has promised that,†Roberts said. â€Every document we want will be made available.â€

That would be a remarkable concession by the White House, which has long resisted yielding internal records to Capitol Hill, even about matters less sensitive than war planning. The White House later issued a statement after Roberts’s appearance that stopped far short of the commitment he described.

[snip]

â€While the committee’s jurisdiction does not cover the White House, we want to be helpful,†the statement continued. â€We will continue to talk to and work with the committee in a spirit of cooperation.â€

Roberts sounds like a manly man, huh?

And don’t forget that Fristie threatened to shut down the Senate if the SSCI pushed for these things. They had a confrontation not dissimilar to the one they recently had on the NSA spying program.

Ought to be a tip-off that OVP is trying to cover up crimes again.

I find it curious that any internal dissent at all remained in the presidential summary. I mean, after hacking the collected analyses of the intelligence agencies on Iraq down to 90 pages (a footnote of dissent on the tubes, right?), then further cutting that document into a single-page summary…. it just seems odd that any lingering hints of doubt remained. How does stuff that gets chucked into a footnote at one level of summary reclaim prominence at a deeper level of summary?

My cynical hunch is that this classified presidential summary was not so much a summary of (the summary of) the intelligence agencies’ findings, but rather a report on how well the NIE intelligence had been fixed. Instead of actual summary wording like, â€INR disputes that the tubes are for centrifuges because…,†my guess is that it’s more along the lines of, â€There is a continued risk that the INR dissent over aluminum tubes may come back to bite us on the ass.â€

Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Hadley, Rice, Roberts and company have all the attributes I associate with the Devil.

so is this new story part of the Plame indictment wars? so soon after the leak of Rove’s â€cooperation†with Fitzgerald seems kind of convenient timing to me….

Jane, I think this goes a long way in clarifying the actual meaning of the Rove/Hadley email.

Cooper talks to Rove of July 11, 2003 and Rove writes the email to Hadley:

â€Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he’s got a welfare-reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up, he immediately launched into Niger. Isn’t this damaging? Hasn’t the president been hurt? I didn’t take the bait, but I said if I were him, I wouldn’t get Time far out in front on this.â€

As we’ve discussed, people have been thinking this was intentionally misleading or a forgery. That is, that Rove was trying to cover his tracks by telling Hadley that he didn’t â€take the bait†and mention Wilson’s wife. Not at all. It’s an accurate update. Shorthand, but not contradictory. What Rove is saying here is that Cooper called him, Cooper and he talked about Niger, Plame and the whole story. In this sense the word â€Niger†is just a shorthand for the whole story that they are trying to get out. Cooper started asking questions like â€Isn’t this damaging? Hasn’t the president been hurt? But, Rove didn’t take the bait.

As we learn from Murray Waas today, the primary objective was to deflect responsibility or even awareness of Wilson’s Niger trip and the entire aluminum tubes business from Bush, so â€not taking the bait†meant that Rove didn’t fall into the trap of giving up that Bush knew anything about Niger. Likewise, Rove cautioned Cooper not to get too far out ahead on this, meaning to stay clear of Bush in his reporting.

It all fits.

More on this and what it means here and here.

MF

It may well be. But the welfare reform reference still stinks.

There is a lot to chew on in Waas’ piece. But for the moment, check this out, from Hadley and Bartlett’s dramatic press conference on July 22, 2003, and look how close they came to having to deal with the apparent fact that the CIA’s memo to Hadley et al two days before Bush’s October 2002 Cincinnati speech dealt not only with the uranium business, but also with the aluminum tubes. Needless to say, this was a memo discovered by the CIA, not by Gerson or someone else at the White House. We pick up with Hadley speaking:

Today I learned of a second memorandum sent by the CIA on October 6. This is commenting on draft eight of the Cincinnati speech. And by this time, by draft eight, the reference to Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium has already been deleted from the speech, as DCI Tenet asked me to do in his telephone request. And what the memorandum does is provide some additional rationale for the removal of the uranium reference.

The memorandum describes some weakness in the evidence, the fact that the effort was not particularly significant to Iraq’s nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already had a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. The memorandum also stated that the CIA had been telling Congress that the Africa story was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence.

This memorandum was received by the Situation Room here in the White House, and it was sent to both Dr. Rice and myself.

Q So there were two issues –

MR. HADLEY: Yes. And the other issue I think was the aluminum tubes issue. But I’m not sure. We need to check that. I was not party to those conversations, so we’re going to have to find out from the agency what the second issue was. And we can get that –

Q It doesn’t say so in –

MR. HADLEY: No. It just says, one of two issues.

Q This memorandum is classified?

MR. HADLEY: Yes.

Q Are they about to be declassified?

MR. HADLEY: That’s not my call.

MR. BARTLETT: I’ll try to get answers to these questions. At this time, we do not — we’ll try to give you all the information we have as soon as we get it. We’ll see what we can do as far as declassification.

MR. HADLEY: I’m not being flip. I’m not part of that declassification process.

Based on these memorandum, the fact is that I had been advised on October 5 that CIA had reservations about British reporting on attempts by Iraq to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa, which I understood to involve Niger. And these reservations were reaffirmed by the CIA memorandum on October 6.

They dodged the bullet on that one, as the coverage the next day appears to have focused exclusively on the Niger uranium doubts.

William

Fair enough. I was thinking just in response to your Tenet speculation. I strongly suspect McLaughlin was the source on the NYT article, or maybe Bill Harlow (or maybe both). So it’s possible Tenet is taking a different approach.

Jeff

Wow, nice catch. Yes, they really did manage to avoid trouble on that one. Though the Press has always seemed to treat the aluminum tubes as insufficiently sexy for them, even if it did justify a war.

MF

I’m not saying you’re wrong. It’s just that the welfare reform has always come off as a real stretch…

polly

I think you and Jeff own a piece of that title. Though Jeff does put in all the hard time over at Maguire’s site.

I’d love to see you there.

Any chance Libby is Waas’ source here? It reads that way to me, especially in light of the recent speculation about Rove selling Libby out.

EW,

Just FYI…I reported on the Oct 2002 briefing of Bush on this very topic last year…in my WMDgate series…
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/…..6106.php#4

Just wanted to second the â€great find†comment regarding the 7/22/03 presser that Jeff found. Once again, nice work by Jeff.

And congrats to EW on being on the Kos panel, too.

According to the Nelson Report (via warandpeace), there’s speculation about whether Josh Bolton, once he replaces Card, will fire Rumsfeld. The Nelson Report seems to lean in favor of the idea that Rummy will be gone. The Nelson Report then goes on to handicap replacement candidates for Rummy. Interestingly (or ludicrously) the Nelson Report lists Armitage as a dark-horse candidate.

I just pass this bit of supposedly high-level gossip so that everyone could get a laugh. Armitage as Sec of Defense?!? As if.

Though Jeff does put in all the hard time over at Maguire’s site.

very true, he does a great job..

Here’s Boucher at State on the aluminum tubes. Quite a bit follows.

QUESTION: In addition to the controversy about the Niger allegation, the President in his State of the Union address talked about the metal tubes, the aluminum tubes, that he said in his State of the Union, â€Saddam has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production,†and, yet, seven days later, a week later, Secretary Powell did mention it, but he talked about it in terms of, you know, there has been some disagreement about this, however, he still decided to include it.

Can you talk about why he decided to include that?
Press Briefing 7/14/03

Boucher again on 7/16/03

QUESTION: Can we go to Niger for a second?

In the week between the State of the Union Address and the Secretary’s presentation at the UN, did Secretary Powell receive any additional information to further knock down the Niger uranium link?

MR. BOUCHER: The Secretary talked about this to, I think, great extent at his press conference at the White House Filing Center in South Africa. It is not so much a question of new information; it was a matter of going through the information in a different way, with the presence of all of the analysts, and finding that the Agency was not carrying it as a major item or a credible item at that point. Therefore, it was not included.
Press Briefing 7/14/03

I don’t remember hearing about Powell having a press conference on the Africa trip. I can’t find a Powell press conference yet.

polly – back atchya.

It’s obvious that Waas has multiple different sources for this story. But it’s maddeningly difficult to tell whether the article is just the result of Waas’ amazing investigative reporting or also a result of the ongoing tactical effort by players in the Plame and intelligence mess to frame the story. The sudden prominence of Hadley – in Libby’s latest public motion to compel discovery and in Waas’ article, as well as in Leopold’s – makes it tempting to think there is something going on in the investigation that the players are aware of and are trying to spin in advance of the rest of us finding out. But if could just be a coincidence, or a matter of Waas following up on Hadley’s prominence in the Libby motion.

As for timing, the White House talking points on the Niger business appear to have been set pretty early, by mid-June at the latest, which would speak to an earlier review by Hadley perhaps. But I can’t tell whether that’s really the case.

A couple of narrowly Plame-related facts: Waas is very clear that Rove and Libby’s claim is that Rove talked with Novak on July 9 (not July 8, as has been periodically reported as well); and Waas specifies that the Libby-Rove conversation took place at the end of a White House senior staff meeting, on July 11.

Just to clarify what Hadley admits to on July 22, 2003: it appears the October 2002 memo from the CIA to Hadley regarding Bush’s Cincinnati speech just observed that there were two issues that were controversial earlier on and that the Americans reminded the British were really qualified. I’m not sure the October 2002 memo specified that one of those matters was the aluminum tubes. But in any case, that was the other issue with the British in fall 2003.

polly – I’ve never been able to find Powell’s South Africa press conference, but it appears to have taken place on July 10, if you look at this question from the July 11 2003 gaggle or press conference with Fleischer and Rice:

Q So a week later, Colin Powell goes to the U.N., and he decides, as he told us yesterday, not to put that sentence in at all. So what was the new development in those seven days that led him to take it out all together?

Similarly, on July 12 Fleischer references the briefing at the filing center on the evening of the 10th:

MR. FLEISCHER: Dr. Rice was always scheduled to brief yesterday, just as Secretary Powell was scheduled to brief at the filing center the night before. So we actually, literally the day before the trip or the week before the trip — sit down. She was scheduled to brief on the flight to Nigeria. It was moved up to the morning flight. It was easier to do it that way, frankly, and to disseminate whatever she said.

But I’ve never been able to find the thing itself.

I think Waas has had Hadley in his sites since Rove testified a fourth time. And several of the details related are details that were being leaked last summer.

Here are two quotes from Howard Fineman’s Rove at War article:

raveling in Africa, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had long harbored doubts, disowned the â€sixteen words†about Niger that had ended up in Bush’s prewar State of the Union speech.

[snip]

Powell was ruled out. He wasn’t a team player, as he had proved by his dismissive comments about the â€sixteen words.â€

And a bonus quote? Here’s how the entire article begins:

Karl Rove is a hunter. His favorite quarry in Texas is quail; in Washington, it’s foes of George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.

Jeff, thanks for finding the Powell press briefing. A couple of Powells comments on Niger stood out.

but there wasn’t enough that would say, take this one to the UN next week. So we didn’t. We weren’t trying to over-sell a case.

There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used.

EW, excellent bonus.

Hope to make it to Vegas. You going Jeff? Tom? Jim E?

Tom, I’ll be by next week. I want to float this bit of speculation and see what you guys think.

Jeff

Yes, I do think it’s possible. How else would Waas have the â€almost declassified the NIE summary but then realized he couldn’t†bit? Maybe from someone who worked directly with Hadley, but that’s awfully close to Hadley. I’m still thinking about how it jibes with the rest of the story, though.

Polly

The first NSC quote likely refers to David Shedd, who had obviously been identified by October 2003 (by Corn at least) as a likely source for Plame’s identity. But the national security team referred to by Dickerson probably doesn’t relate exclusively to NSC. Condi and Hadley, sure. But I gotta believe he included Rove and Libby and Cheney and Rummy in that as well.

But it sticks to technical, legalistic truth in two ways, and get ready to hear this from the righties, if Waas’ story is big news…

Well, regardless of the fact that obvious does not equal false, my point was that the speechwriters wrote this passage as if they knew caveats were appropriate – I find that mildly telling.

As to whether it is a â€lieâ€, the declassified NIE includes this:

Most agencies believe that Saddam’s personal interest in and Iraq’s aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors–as well as Iraq’s attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools–provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad’s nuclear weapons program. (DOE agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)

One might argue that the dispute over the tubes is a technical point obscuring a larger picture of consensus, since even the DOE agreed that the nuclear program was being reconstituted. Here is the INR:

The Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) believes that Saddam continues to want nuclear weapons and that available evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapons-related capabilities. The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons.

I thought eriposte told us that the Times covered the tube dispute in Sept 2002; the IAEA debunked the tubes and the forgeries in March 2003 (Timely, yes? No.)

Polly – no Vegas for me. And although I understand that what is said in Vegas stays in Vegas, I am curious to see the EW after-action report – as the panelist most closely grounded in reality, she bears a special burden.

As to several people being in the Woodward interview with Official One – hard to credit that. But maybe someone stuck their head in, or a phone rang, or some such. But geez, who would interrupt Woodward and… well, anybody?

EW is â€the panelist most closely grounded in reality . . .â€

I am continually amazed that Reddhead and Hamsher are so kind to TM.

You going Jeff?

I’d love to go; we’ll see. (I’m also hoping to close the italics i accidentally left open – sorry.)

The most comprehensive discussion of the coverage of the tubes is Michael Massing’s â€Now They Tell Us.â€

Here’s an excerpt:

In early October, Landay’s curiosity was further aroused when the CIA released a declassified version of its new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. For the most part, the document blandly summarized the agency’s longstanding findings regarding Iraq’s ties to terrorists and its efforts to develop WMD. In a brief section on the aluminum tubes, however, it noted that, while the intelligence community as a whole believed the tubes were intended for use in centrifuges, some experts disagreed, believing they were intended for conventional weapons. This was a rare public acknowledgment of dissent within the intelligence agencies, and Landay, intrigued, began making more calls. He eventually reached a veteran of the US uranium enrichment program. â€He’d been given data on the tubes, and he said that this wasn’t conclusive evidence,†Landay recalled. In early October, Landay wrote about how the CIA report had â€exposed a sharp dispute among US intelligence experts†over Iraq’s arsenal. One expert was quoted as saying he did not believe the tubes were intended for use in nuclear weapons because â€their diameters were too small and the aluminum they were made from was too hard.â€

Quick followup on Gordon and Miller’s September 13 2002 article: the SSCI report confirms what I thought was a flat-out falsehood. On p. 94 (transcribing):

A September 13, 2002 New York Times article which discussed the IC debate about the aluminum tubes, noted that an administration official said, â€. . . the best technical experts and nuclear scientists at laboratories like Oak Ridge supported the CIA assessments.†The [redacted] contractors told Committee staff, however, that before September 16, 2002, they had not seen any of the intelligence data on the Iraqi tubes. DOE officials, including the Director of the Oak Ridge Field Intelligence Element, told Committee staff that the vast majority of scientists and nuclear experts at the DOE and the National Labs did not agree with the CIA’s analysis.

A couple more points about some TM arguments:

One might argue that the dispute over the tubes is a technical point obscuring a larger picture of consensus, since even the DOE agreed that the nuclear program was being reconstituted.

A technical point? That’s a good one. Take away the aluminum tubes and Niger frauds — both exposed before the war — and what the heck is left?

The DOE cravenly tried to prove it was a team player by going along with the laughable claims about Iraq’s â€nuclear programme†(and Niger), only after having been repeatedly attacked and denigrated for its unwillingness to prostitute its institutional reputation by abetting the ridiculous â€centrifuge†case for the aluminum tubes. But of course for some this is evidence of a â€larger picture of consensus†on reconstitution.

Let’s be very clear here. The entire Admin case for an Iraqi nuclear programme was, quite simply, a joke. Completely laughable. In every single respect. Various parts of the intelligence community were at various times and in various ways clearly complicit with the massive campaign of deception that the Admin created re: WMDs in Iraq; but most were just complicit. A few (like the astounding WINPAC) went far beyond this, playing active roles in collaborating with the Admin to manufacture the fraud. At any rate, please don’t insult your intelligence and mine by pretending that the Administration was just the unwitting victim and passive recipient of faulty and wholly independent intelligence-community judgements about nuclear reconstitution.

… the IAEA debunked the tubes and the forgeries in March 2003 (Timely, yes? No.)

The IAEA had been vigorously expressing its strong scepticism about the â€centrifuge†theory of the tubes since July 2001. During the 2002-3 round of inspections the IAEA had already issued a provisional conclusion that the tubes were meant for rockets and not centrifuges in their 9 Jan. 2003 report, and El Baradei’s final conclusion — â€Based on available evidence, the IAEA team has concluded that Iraq’s efforts to import these aluminum tubes were not likely to have been related to the manufacture of centrifuges.†— was issued in his Feb. 7 report.

According to the SSCI, the IAEA definitively informed the US government that the uranium documents were forgeries on 4 March 2003. More plausible reports indicate that the IAEA informed the UK and US about the forgeries (and its plans to publicly announce them as such) two weeks before their 7 March public announcement and offered both countries a chance to add any independent evidence supporting their claims; both governments were silent and did nothing to dissuade the IAEA from its course of action. Of course the only reason all of this happened so late in the first place was because the Admin had repeatedly ignored repeated, specific requests from the IAEA since late 2002 to hand the documents over. Gee, I wonder why that was. And are we forgetting that the US handed over the documents with the sheepish admission that â€we cannot confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claimsâ€?

And in his Jan. 27 report El Baradei had already issued the following statement: â€Barring exceptional circumstances and provided there is sustained co-operation by Iraq, we should be able within the next few months to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme.†Able, that is, to reconfirm the IAEA’s 1997 report concluding that Iraq had no nuclear weapons programme.

So I’m very curious to hear what is meant by the cryptic and telegraphic â€(Timely, yes? No.)â€

There are some new documents in the Libby case that have been made public. I’ll leave aside the judge’s ruling on ex parte submissions, and get to Fitzgerald’s response to Libby’s third motion to compel discovery. There is some major news.

Headlines: Cheney â€expressed concerns†to Libby after Wilson’s op-ed about whether Wilson’s trip was legit or a nepotistic junket. Libby got approval from Bush via Cheney to disclose otherwise classified material to Miller. But was it declassified? Addington said yes. Details of July 12, 2003 flight finally revealed: Cheney told Libby to do the heavy lifting with the press on Wilson.

There can be no question that this filing by Fitzgerald makes clear a whole dimension of the investigation that we’ve only been dimly aware of, though Libby’s last filing raised its profile: the question of the disclosure of the NIE and whether it was declassified.

There are some new documents in the Libby case that have been made public. I’ll leave aside the judge’s ruling on ex parte submissions, and get to Fitzgerald’s response to Libby’s third motion to compel discovery.

p. 7: â€Some documents produced to defendant could be characterized as reflecting a plan to discredit, punish, or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson.â€

p. 7: â€The government has no knowledge of the existence of any notes reflecting comments by former Secretary of State Powell regarding Ms. Wilson during a September 2003 meeting.â€

p. 9: It appears to be the case that Fitzgerald nails down Craig Schmall as Libby’s June 14 2003 CIA briefer described in paragraph 11 of the indictment, and Bob Grenier as the senior CIA officer Libby spoke with on June 11 2003 and heard about Plame from. see also p. 11.

p. 9: More interestingly, Fitzgerald says that the government at this time does not intend to call Tenet, Hadley and Rove at trial. But it does intend to call Schmall, Grenier, Grossman, and Fleischer. On p. 10 Fitzgerald goes on to note that Grossman will be the government’s lone State Department witness.

p. 10: In connection with Grossman, we have confirmation of something we’ve known: â€As a result of defendant’s inquiries, information was gathered and a classified report was prepared by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (â€the INR reportâ€). Also, on p. 11: â€Defendant has been provided with a copy of the INR report in classified discovery, and the government understands that no contemporaneous reports written by Mr. Grossman about his conversations with defendant in May and June 2003 are available.â€

p. 11: â€The central issue at trial will be whether defendant lied when he testified that he was not aware that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA prior to his purported conversation with Tim Russert about Mr. Wilson’s wife on or about july 10, 2003.â€

p. 11: Schmall and Grenier are the government’s only CIA witnesses, it appears. And Fleischer is the government’s only White House witness.

p. 13: Interesting argument, with regard to potential defense witnesses Armitage, Powell, Tenet, Harlow and perhaps other CIA folks and Rove, that the prosecution does not have to provide, in essence, impeaching material of those witnesses if it is not also material and exculpatory per the Brady test. Armitage (and maybe Powell and Tenet), I’m looking at you.

p. 17: Fitzgerald appears to confirm some level of involvement by Libby and OVP in Tenet’s infamous July 11 2003 statement, since it has documents from OVP, including notes of defendant and drafts of Tenet’s statement, responsive to Libby’s request for all documents reflecting dicussion in the government of whether to release a public statement that July week regarding the 16 words, including all drafts of Tenet’s statement.

p. 18: This will drive righties and lefties crazy: â€The evidence will show that the July 6, 2003, Op Ed by Mr. Wilson was viewed in the Office of Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq. Defendant undertook vigorous efforts to rebut this attack during the week following July 7, 2003.â€

And how about this as some news? p. 18: â€At some point after the publication of the July 6, 2003 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, defendant’s immediate superior, expressed concerns to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson’s trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson’s wife.†And Fitzgerald keeps on going, in all sorts of interesting ways, including ones that should make Maguire’s maniacs reconsider whether Fitzgerald is in Wilson’s pocket: â€And, in considering ’context,’ there was press reporting that the Vice President had dispatched Mr. Wilson on the trip (which in fact was not accurate). Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson’s wife sent him on the Niger trip wass one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the Vice President had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson’s credibility if Mr. Wilson were percieved to have received the assigment on account of nepotism.â€

p. 18-19: â€Defendant’s participation in a critical conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 (discussed further below) occurred only after the Vice President advised defendant that the President specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE. Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller – getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval – were unique in his recollection.†And the hits keep on coming: â€Defendant further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice President to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson. Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare ’on the record’ statement, and to provide ’background’ and ’deep background’ statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson.â€

p. 22 confirms that regarding the NIE we’re talking about a declassification – presumably by Bush – made known to Libby by Cheney, and states that Libby testified that he udnerstood no one at other agencies (like, say, the CIA) was aware of or involved in that declassification. I presume this was a good part of what Fitzgerald wanted to ask Bush about, though I can’t be sure.

p. 23: more on the purported (by Libby) rationale for disclosing to Miller the key judgments of the classified NIE – thought the NIE was pretty definitive against Wilson and CHeney thought it was very important for those key judgments to come out. Libby brought up with Cheney that he couldn’t do it because the NIE was classified, and Cheney later told him the President had authorized Libby to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE. And check this out, Murray Waas, on p. 23: â€Defendant testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document.†Wow. Wow. But is all this true, since Fitzgerald goes on to dispute Libby’s testimony in important respects?

p. 23: in fact Libby discussed with Miller the contents of a then classified CIA report which Libby told Miller was written by Wilson – this appears to be the report that resulted from Wilson’s trip.

p. 24 appears to imply that Libby also discussed the NIE’s key judgments with Cooper.

It appears to be the case that Fitzgerald is implying that Cheney told Libby to talk about the Wilsons, though Libby limited Cheney’s direction to Wilson. Is this why he lied?

p. 24 appears to suggest that Fitzgerald is skeptical of Libby’s account, since no one else knew the President had declassified the part of the NIE and were not told even though key official including Cabinet level officials (I assume this includes at least Tenet and possibly Hadley) were pressed to declassify the NIE, the report about Wilson’s trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003 – what’s that?

That’s all I can do tonight. More tomorrow.